


the hubris of giants

by JadeClover



Series: star-hewn colossi [23]
Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-05-30
Updated: 2017-05-30
Packaged: 2018-11-06 16:01:50
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,049
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11039520
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/JadeClover/pseuds/JadeClover
Summary: Haggar is unsettled. Her emperor is, for this moment, alive. She had not foreseen this outcome, but all the same, it has come to pass.





	the hubris of giants

**Author's Note:**

> I've been agonizing over this fic for the past four months. End me now.

She wavers, but suppresses it, giving no outward sign—with just a thought, she slips small bursts of magic into her veins to offset the exhaustion, the pain. It is a deplorable habit, yes—and unsustainable—but this time, it is necessary.  
  
( _How did it come to this?_ )  
  
Where thick cords link with humming machinery, they form a locus of power. And at the heart of it, at the nexus, lies her emperor. She watches him, follows the rise and fall of every shallow breath, threads awareness beneath her skin of that ( _precious_ ) quintessence which _still holds on, still lingers, he still lives—_  
  
She cannot look away. It is impossible. She cannot part her gaze from a face that, whether in meditation or repose, has never once looked so _still._  
  
( _It should not have come to this._ )  
  
The memories, not yet put to rest, supply themselves: Her emperor laid prone, unresponsive, extraneous armor stripped away in haste. Motion around her, no more than a blur. Magic, the balance of energy and life—that balance _failing_. What it took to save him: The last of her reserves of power, drained away to nothing and still wrung for more. ( _Four ticks. Four ticks in which his heart would not beat._ ) Like a ghost, the cold of the void still hovers at the edge of her senses; it was she who plucked him from the ruined, rent shell of his armor, magic wrapped around them both like a shield.  
  
_You should have listened to me._  
  
_You should have listened to me_ , she thinks, edging a stream of thoughts born only from anger.  
  
_Senseless, foolish, reckless—_  
  
A deep breath. In through the nose, sharp. Out too slow to be felt.  
  
( _She does not mean it. She does not mean it at all._ )  
  
Motes of light pull from the still form and disappear into shadow, drifting in and out—tiny, scattered stars. She tilts her head _up, up, up,_ following the lines of the conduits—and isn't it strange, isn't it _wrong,_ that now it is only their power that keeps him alive?  
  
She knows this much: He should have listened to her. He should not have used the armor, should not have gone so far. That, at least, cannot be debated. But as for the rest...?  
  
She asks herself once more: _How did it come to this?_  
  
There is no answer, or none that can satisfy. Instead, she lets her gaze rove over the conduits, the machines, the quietly-running systems, the infusion of quintessence she oversaw herself. It is all in order. It is the best she can do. For the time being, she has been relegated to idleness.  
  
Idleness does not suit her. Her hands curl into fists at her sides.  
  
It eludes the mind, the precariousness of this. After millennia, _more than ten thousand years,_ worlds by the hundreds rising and falling, and at the heart of it, the beating heart, their empire, always growing but so rarely _changing_ — Time has a way of dulling the senses. Haste cools, panic settles, impulse weakens. When no surprises remain, all that is left to do is execute that which worked before. It is difficult to remember the idea that it could all be stripped away in an instant. That in all things, mortality remains.  
  
Could this have been prevented? That is what her mind returns to, again and again. It is... _frightening,_ in the aftermath, to think that she could not have seen this coming. Had she not told him he walked a dangerous line? Had she not told him he could go too far?  
  
Had she not believed it herself, that he could, _would_ go this far in the end, with nothing to stop him?  
  
( _Should she have tried harder, found a way to stop him herself? But how? She knows him, she knows nothing can stand in his way._ )  
  
Was it some flaw in her thinking, then, some fleeting, vital moment missed? Or was it just the hubris of giants, to think that the mighty cannot fall, that titans never yield?  
  
Whatever it is, it has come to pass. It no longer matters whether it could have been prevented—all that matters is if it can be _salvaged_.  
  
Her eyes find his face again.  
  
If he does not wake...  
  
If he does not wake, she knows what must be done. There will be measures to take, plans to enact, contingencies to put into place. An empire to ensure the future of.  
  
Regardless of if he wakes, there are still those measures and plans and contingencies.  
  
At last, she turns away.  
  
Staggering her, almost, is the awareness of concentrated quintessence, a burning in the back of her mind, all the worse now that she cannot _see_ it, cannot tame it with another of her senses. ( _Quite truly, the amount it takes to heal him is enough to kill any other._ ) And so, too, it summons memories, unbidden—the cold edge of Voltron's power, bright and crystal-pure. The battle that followed: Drawing magic from overtaxed nerves, only for it to be turned back upon her—the komar, damaged—( _irreparable?_ )—and the Princess—  
  
_No._ It boils her blood, tightens her chest; she cannot think about that right now.  
  
She steadies herself, takes the steps down from the dais. She does not look back, _cannot_ look back, she must not let herself. Her footsteps echo, the only sound in this vast, quiet chamber.  
  
( _Measures to take,_ she thinks, _and plans, and contingencies._ )  
  
She will not rest. This must be paid for—in blood. What the paladins have done, what ruin they have wrought—  
  
This must be salvaged. She knows her course of action—the _only_ course, indeed. Already she is balancing matters in her mind, weighing cause and effect. It is regrettable, this—but unavoidable.  
  
At her approach, the doors slide open. Beyond, the commanders wait.  
  
She gives them a single order.  
  
It is an action she never imagined to take, but what of this has she foreseen? Any? She is treading paths unwalked, following rules still unwritten. And yes, it is incomprehensible, _inconceivable—_  
  
It is the future they have wrought, coming to pass. And at the heart of it? It is simply the best she can do.  
  
She will have to make it enough.

**Author's Note:**

> I have a [tumblr](http://jade-clover.tumblr.com/) if you wanna come talk to me!


End file.
